GIVERNY
Giverny is the garden where Claude Monet created some of his most famous paintings and was his residence until his death in 1926. At the top of a small hill on one side of the road stands his house and a French cottage garden called Clos Normand. This is an overwhelming collection of flowers, planted in clumps, freely growing, nothing formal about it. This was definitely the time of year to see Giverny as the irises (my favorite flower) were in full bloom along with phlox and roses to dazzle the imagination. And oh the fragrance! Even with a stuffy head cold, I was lost in the aroma of the garden. On the other side of the road was his water garden with the famous Japanese bridge. Unfortunately the bridge is just a replica and didn't look like anything special. The brooks that fed into the pond were so serene, even with all the tourists, my stress levels from the previous day in Paris were approaching zero. One thing about visiting Giverny, the bus schedule is unreliable. We ended up walking through the French countryside 4 km back to the train station. I might even recommend paying for an organized trip where someone drives you out there from your hotel to avoid the train/bus hassle altogether.VERSAILLES
This palace and gardens knocks the socks off anything you will see in Paris. Seeing these gardens was like seeing the ocean for the first time; it was hard to comprehend the magnitude of it all. The most impressive part was the orangery. The orangery gardens consist of formal hedges and the orange trees in their boxes for moving in and out of the orangery. As you walked inside the orangery, cool damp air poured through the doors and you suddenly felt like you were in the land of giants. The proportions were massive; you could have rolled a whole forest of trees in there. We explored up and down the hall and figured this may be a good place to hide during a rainstorm, as the thunderheads drew near. The rest of the gardens consisted of dozens of "rooms" typically with a fountain as the central theme. Yes, it did start to rain, but we took a long lunch under a canopy and were able to see the rest of the gardens when the storms had passed. On the back side of the palace, there was a grand network of fountains, which all turned on at 3:30. Standing up on those palace stairs, it was so amazing how the garden stretched as far as the eye could see. I have never been to a garden built on such a grand scale and for that reason alone, Versailles put Singapore out of the number one spot on my list of best gardens in the world.
VILLANDRY
I remember learning about Villandry in my horticulture classes back at Penn State. Don't forget, I went on to become a chemist, but my first love is horticulture! Villandry's vegetable gardens were featured in one of my vegetable crops textbooks and I remember staring at those photos, longing to see the garden in person. Well, Villandry did not disappoint. The gardens were immaculate, a stark contrast to Giverny. We briefly toured the inside of the chateau, which was nice, but nothing compared to the gardens, in my opinion. CHENONCEAU
Compared to the other gardens, Chenonceau was hardly worth the €10 entrance fee. There was some significant reconstruction being done on the chateau itself and the grounds near the gardens, so I didn't bother taking many photos of scaffolding and do not enter signs with red and white tape. There was a manicured hedge garden that was nice, but there were no good ariel views of it from the chateau. I thought the 16th century farm and vegetable garden were the main attractions. AMBOISE
This wasn't really a garden, it was an old town with a big chateau that we stopped at on our drive back to Paris. The chateau rose high above the river and town, but we didn't pay the €10 entrance fee to see the inside. Instead, we walked around the town, looking at the old buildings and city walls. This town was good for what we intended it, a one hour stop for lunch on the way back to Paris.
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